


Dime For A Bag

by Tvieandli



Category: Akira - All Media Types
Genre: AU, Addiction, Drugs, Gen, suicide ideation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-18
Updated: 2016-08-29
Packaged: 2018-04-15 11:13:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4604562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tvieandli/pseuds/Tvieandli
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Medicine is just poison in controlled doses. Prescriptions are just medically certified addictions. Doctors chain you up. Dealers set you free.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a vent piece. It comes from my personal experiences and feelings. It may or may not be continued but for now it should probably be counted as a one shot. It doesn't explain much of why, but this is what it's like to deal with non-addicts who just don't understand the motivations behind self medication induced addiction.
> 
> Tetsuo's views are not entirely my own and i'm not attempting to condemn prescription medication. The statement in the summary is fictional and only meant to apply to this piece of fanfiction

He looks like shit and he knows it. All red eyes with bloodshot whites, and that glossy half dead look. He clocked it in the mirror, all the voices in his head running rampant, field day gleeful on it, on the bags under them, on the paleness of his skin and the unkemptness of his hair before he left the house. Now, Kaneda looks him up and down with something that might be pity or suspicion. He fiddles nervously with the elbow of his jacket. And he hates the words, but they come out anyway. They need to come out, and he can't stop them because they need to be said.

"Can I maybe borrow some money?"

Kaneda's eyes snap back up to his, and now they're narrowing, all hard, all traces of any possibility of pity gone. "What are you gonna do with it?" he asks.

"I'm just out all the way," Tetsuo clarifies. "I spent the last on booze. I just need something to fall back on."

"Fall back on?" Kaneda asks.

"I've been out of pills for days, Kaneda! You don't understand," is out of Tetsuo's mouth before he can even think it shouldn't be said.

Kaneda draws back from him a little,hides behind the door a bit, eyes him again. He's thinking, and Tetsuo can see it. He can smell the grind of internal gears. He just wants Kaneda to stop thinking. He wants Kaneda to drop dead. He wants blood. He doesn't know what he wants. His brain is all confusion and the smell of red. It feels like he's crumbling. He needs help. He needs Kaneda. Kaneda has so much power. So much power it's terrifying like the world will collapse under it. Like families will fall down stairs for eternities. 

Kaneda swallows. "You should come in," he says, and lets the door swing open wider.

The little apartment inside feels like a haven. It smells like motor fuel and warmth, and the musk left on his best friend's jackets. It's like it isn't even real. A little pocket dimension closed off from the rest of the world. Kaneda closes the door behind him, and everything is gone. They're sealed off. This is the only thing that exists. This tiny house in a sea of nothing. Just blackness.

Kaneda follows him down the tiny entry hall, and points at a couch. "Sit down" he says softly, so Tetsuo does. 

When he's looking at his feet he realizes he didn't even remember to take his shoes off. 

"So how ya doin?" Kaneda asks, sitting himself on the couch opposite the one Tetsuo sat on. 

A silence stretches between them for a moment. Tetsuo tries to look everywhere but at Kaneda. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see his best friend, craning his head to try and get a better eye on him. 

"Tetsuo?" he asks

"I'm fine," Tetsuo blurts out too quickly. "I've been fine."

When he looks up, Kaneda's face is skeptical. 

"You're not looking so hot, man," Kaneda says after a few beats of baited breath.

"Gee thanks," Tetsuo bites back sarcastically.

Kaneda huffs at him. "I don't mean it as a dig. You look like shit."

"I have eyes Kaneda."

The other boy sits up more fully. "Look, Tetsuo-" he cuts off, eyes flicking from Tetsuo's down the the floor and back up again. "You can talk to me okay? I mean if anyone's bothering you I can-"

"No one's bothering me," Tetsuo snaps. "I need money for myself. I'm out of pills"

"So you want me to buy you drugs?" Kaneda asks.

Tetsuo takes a deep breath and heaves it at the ceiling panels. "You don't understand."

"I could pay for rehab," Kaneda suggests.

Tetsuo feels heat well up in his chest and throat. A long line of barely restrained energy beats itself down the length of both of his arms, making it feel like maybe they'll act on their own at any moment. His muscles instinctively clamp down around all his nerves, holding him still like his body is it's own prison. "Fuck you," he hisses.

Kaneda looks incredulous. He opens his mouth to say something, but Tetsuo cuts him off before he can get a word in.

"You really don't get it do you?" he demands.

Kaneda stammers, trying to answer in a timely fashion.

"The pills aren't the problem fuck dammit! It's my head! I'm the problem! I can't live without the pills! I'm not eating! I have food and I'm not eating because I can't afford pills! I can't sleep I'm gonna start seeing shit I need the fucking drugs or I'm gonna die! They can't fix that in fucking rehab, Kaneda! I'm fucked up so bad that rehab isn't going to help! You want to help me?! Give me some fucking money and let me fucking get what I need."

Kaneda stares at him blankly for a few seconds.

Tetsuo can hear his heart beating in his ears. It sounds like footsteps. Giant's footsteps. He remembers being a child and thinking that was the sound of giants coming to get him and shuts his eyes to banish the thought. He's always been this way. He's always been fucked up and not right. Hardly there, hardly gone. Not real. Like a toy under a spell to seem real. Some cheap imitation of human.

Why does Kaneda always have to piss him off so much? He used to like Kaneda. Weren't they best friends? Wasn't he the closest to Kaneda? Why did everything feel like this? It was so forced and Kaneda didn't understand. Did anyone? Who could?

"Wouldn't it be healthier though, I mean-"

"There's nothing healthy about me!" Tetsuo shouts, slamming his fist into the couch cushions. It makes a soft whuffing sound, and Kaneda eyes up his hand before dismissing the threat. "I'm gonna actually die without these drugs Kaneda. It's like giving a cancer patient chemotherapy."

Kaneda's eyes drift, clearly looking for an answer to the problem, trying to think of something.

Tetsuo sighs heavily. "Just give me the money or say no, I don't have time for this." 

"Wait," Kaneda insists. "Stay here a little while, okay? I'll get you the pills but you have to stay here with me."

"How long?" Tetsuo asks.

"Two weeks?" Kaneda suggests.

Tetsuo looks at him - looks around at the soft, isolated, only place in existence apartment around them. "Whatever," he says.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> apparently i am continuing this lol

"I don't get it," Kaneda says. Tetsuo feels his friend sit down somewhere nearby, jostling the couch cushions around his head.

"What's to get?" he asks, staring at the ceiling.

"Shouldn't the pills make you more sick? I don't see how they make it easier to eat," Kaneda presses.

Tetsuo laughs softly. How does he explain this? It's so complicated and weird. No one's ever thought it made sense, not even him. "It's all in my head," he says, snaking an arm through the air to point at his temple. "Just my brain, all crazy, and weird, and fucked up, you know? It's not normal in there, so it needs to be fixed."

"And this fixes it?" Kaneda asks, shaking the little bottle above Tetsuo's eyes. The transparent, orange plastic blurs through his vision like a neon light. For a moment he feels like he's on a motorcycle, and his whole body vibrates with the hum of a phantom engine.

"Sure as shit," Tetsuo chirps. He's happy for once. Happyish maybe. He can't feel anything that's for sure. His headache is gone and his body is loose, and his mind isn't so loud now. His clothes feel normal and not like fire where they touch his skin. It's good. This is how life should be. Most people say this is how life is all the time. "Closest to fixed it ever gets is while I'm high."

Kaneda sighs. "That's fucked," he says. 

"I'm fucked," Tetsuo tells him. "I'm just looking for the right pill that'll fuck me so good I never have to pop another one again."

He hears Kaneda shake his head more than he sees it.

"You think I'm crazy, don't you?"

"Tetsuo, I've known you were crazy since we were little kids," Kaneda tells him.

"Well good. Then you're not completely stupid."

Kaneda actually laughs at that, a soft sound. It's calming, and good. Tetsuo hadn't even realized how much he missed it. 

"I guess not," the other boy says.

Tetsuo cranes his neck to get a look at him, and they meet eyes over a mutual smile for once.

"Thanks for the drugs," Tetsuo says.

Kaneda's face falls instantly, and that's more than enough to get Tetsuo laughing, because he just looks so ridiculous. Honestly, as high as he is, he couldn't care less what his friend thinks. It's none of his business what goes on inside a head that isn't his. He doesn't care.

He looks back up at the ceiling, tracing patterns on the panels with his eyes. The inside of his head is like music soup, and he feels some mixture of too heavy to move but too light to sink into it's depths. It's peaceful. He's at rest. Maybe this is what death is like and he should just kill himself already so he doesn't have to cope with the hell that is life.

It seems like forever and a day passes before Kaneda reminds him he's not alone. "So tell me how things have been, where were you?"

"Oh you know," Tetsuo says. "Shitty. I've been trying to kill myself but it's not working." he trails off, glancing up at his friend again, and adds a lazy, "Obviously." 

Kaneda offers him an awkward smile. It's very forced. It seems unnatural on his face. Tetsuo doesn't care.

"Kaori and I lived together for a while, but we lost the apartment," he continues. "We haven't talked in a long time. I don't know where she is. I don't know if I care. Sometimes it's all I think about, and sometimes I couldn't give less of a shit. I don't know. Yamagata says I owe him cash, so I've been avoiding him. I can't remember why I owe him. It's weird. Everything's weird. There was a month a while back, I don't remember which one, but I lost like two weeks. I don't know where they went just poof. They're not in my head," he explained.

"So life's complicated?" Kaneda asks.

"No shit," Tetsuo tells him. "You're simple though, right? I mean you do things and it's all easy and shit works."

"I guess," Kaneda says.

"Man I wish I was you."

Kaneda huffs at that. "Well that feeling's once sided, bro. I'm not sure I want to deal with even half the shit you just told me."

It makes Tetsuo laugh.

"Man your couch is so comfy," he says, when all the giggles have dried up. 

"Good, cause you're gonna be sleeping on it for a while," Kaneda tells him.

Tetsuo tries to push himself up so that he's sitting but fails. "Whats' that?" he asks, "You're not gonna be a gentleman and offer me your bed?"

Kaneda splutters. "Are you crazy? No! Of course not! That's something guys only do for chicks."

"So you can fuck em?" Tetsuo asks.

"Well Yeah I guess."

"I'd let you fuck me for bed privileges," Tetsuo says.

Kaneda's eyes go wide. This time the spluttering is frantic enough that he almost launches himself off the couch, ending up perched on the edge of the cushion, twisted to look back at Tetsuo like he's a potential threat that can't be out of the line of sight.

Tetsuo laughs at him. "Oh fuck, take a joke, Kaneda," he says, because for all that it's true he was mostly joking. Kaneda's never really been the kind of guy to consider fucking another boy. He's all girls girls girls. Girls and being as dudely as possible. It makes no room for anything to be gay.

For a while when they were younger, Tetsuo had hoped maybe they'd hook up, but he's been over that for about a year and a half. 

Kaneda looks him dead in the eye and chuckles awkwardly. "Of course," he says.

"Why do you want me here?" Tetsuo asks him then.

"What?"

"I just make you uncomfortable. You don't understand me. You don't approve of me. Why do you want me here? Wouldn't it just be better if I fucked off and never bothered you? why are you forcing yourself?"

Kaneda looks dumbfounded. It reminds Tetsuo how infrequently people call the other boy out. 

Silence falls between them. Kaneda doesn't break eye contact. He looks like a deer in the headlights. He doesn't have an answer, Tetsuo realizes. He has no idea what to say. For once in his life, Kaneda has been caught without a comeback. And Tetsuo is the one that caught him. This is, in and of itself, a victory.

Tetsuo sits up, and looks his friend more directly in the face.

"Why am I here?" he presses.

Kaneda's eyes flick away.

"Kaneda."

He looks back, eyes still wide. His body's tense on the edge of his seat like someone's shoved a thick wire in him that ran tailbone to skull.

"Why am I here?"

"I-" the other boy starts. "I want to help."

"And keeping me like a pet in exchange for 'treats' is helping?" Tetsuo asks.

"Look it's not like-"

Tetsuo shakes his head. "Whatever it's like you're not gonna be able to fix me."

Kaneda swallows.

"You're gonna try anyway though, aren't you?" Tetsuo asks.

Kaneda looks at the floor. "I can't just abandon you," he says softly.

"Why not? Everyone else has."

Kaneda looks guilty. He looks like the kid caught stealing money from mom's purse. "I'm not everyone else," he says with resolve.

Tetsuo rolls his eyes.

He hears the pill bottle shake again, and then Kaneda's holding it up. "I'm gonna keep hold of these so you don't blow through them all at once, okay?" he says.

"Kaneda-"

"It's fair, okay? I won't not give them to you I'm just also not gonna let you take them all. Tell me when you want another one."

"I'm gonna be knocking on your bedroom door in the middle of the night, and you know it," Tetsuo warns.

Kaneda shrugs at him. "Just don't rip my apartment apart trying to find them, because you won't."

Tetsuo's back to wanting to kill him again when he stands up and walks into the bedroom.

"I'm gonna take care of you," Kaneda assures before the door clicks shut.

Sure as shit. Tetsuo feels so safe, and not imprisoned at all. Sometimes Kaneda makes him regret being an orphan. Not because he was unloved, and abandoned millions of times, but because his best friend had to be this piece of shit useless motherfucker with no problems who thinks he knows what was best for everyone.

If Kaneda didn't have the pills, he'd leave. He'd just take them and leave and never come back. Or try to never come back. Who knew maybe he'd end up right back here in a few weeks with no cash in need of drugs.

Life sucks. 

Kaneda's doing this on purpose. Kaneda's keeping him on a leash, and the leash is the pills. This should be counted as manipulation. Maybe it should be illegal. It is, actually, kind of, but if he called the cops both of them would end up in jail.

He lies back down on the couch, and puts his hands over his face.

He should really die. All of this would be easier if he could just die.


	3. Chapter 3

There are pamphlets on the coffee table when Tetsuo wakes up. He feels groggy. There's sand in his head, and it feels like he's probably been hit by a train. He's sober, he realizes dismally, smearing his hand across the rough paint of the table top. The pamphlets jostle about as he reaches for the glass of water Kaneda left him.

He's halfway through chugging the water when he realizes the pamphlets had not been there the day before.

He stops, eying them. Most have a doctor on the front, smiling. One has a family. All of them have "addiction" spelled out in nice proper font in their titles.

The list reads: "Addiction and You" "The Intersection Of Mental Illness And Addiction" "The Effects Of Addiction" "Addiction A Sickness" etc. etc. ad. nauseam. 

Tetsuo groans, chucking one across the room. It hits the wall with a dry thwak, and falls limply to the floor.

"Are you reading the brochures?" Kaneda calls from the kitchen.

"No!" Tetsuo snarls back.

"I thought maybe they'd be helpful."

"They're not! Where did you get this shit anyway?!" Tetsuo demands, sure to put an emphasis on shit because that's what it is.

"I went down to the free clinic today," Kaneda says, stepping around the corner. He has a mixing bowl balanced against his hip. 

"What were you doing there?" Tetsuo asks.

Kaneda shrugs and gives the bowl a stir. "You were bitching me out yesterday about not understanding," he explains.

"So you went to a doctor?!" Tetsuo shouts. It's rhetorical, but Kaneda moves to respond. He's always so defensive about these things. Tetsuo wants to hurt him. "Are you fucking stupid?! If it wasn't for doctors I wouldn't be half so fucked up!"

"They're doctors. They want to help," Kaneda insists.

Tetsuo snarls, flinging the pamphlets off the table. "Bullshit!" he shouts.

Kaneda blinks at him blankly.

"I'm too fucking sober for this shit," he mutters. "Give me some pills if you want to have this conversation."

Kaneda drops the mixing bowl on the coffee table and goes into his room. Upon inspection the bowl is filled with cookie dough, which Tetsuo steals a bite of. It's alright, not the best but relatively good. Kaneda comes back out with three pills, and hands them over. 

Tetsuo takes two and tucks the third into his pocket. "Now give me fifteen minutes."

"Yeah we can talk over cookies," Kaneda deadpans. "It's so homey. We'll have a tea party and talk about how crappy life is."

That gets Tetsuo to laugh. He leans back against the couch, and waits for the pills to kick in. The sedation sinks in slowly. He feels it in his fingertips first and then all the way up his arms and down his legs. By that point Kaneda's watching some reality tv show he couldn't care less about and the whole apartment smells like cookies.

When the timer beeps, Kaneda pulls them out of the oven, and comes back to sit down opposite Tetsuo with a serious look on his face.

"So we were gonna talk," he says.

"Yeah," Tetsuo agrees. "What about again?"

"About how doctors are evil?" Kaneda suggests.

Tetsuo nods, looks at his hand on the couch cushions, and then back up. "They're the worst," he says definitively. "You remember when we were in school and I went nuts and the ambulance came so they could take me away?"

"Yeah. You had the accident and you were in the hospital for a week and when you came back you started acting all crazy and that's when they took you," Kaneda recalls.

Tetsuo nods again. "I wasn't in the hospital either time. Not the real hospital," he says.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean I was in the mental ward."

Kaneda takes a deep breath, and looks confused.

"The ward isn't like a hospital," Tetsuo explains. "It's similar but there are less rules for the doctors and more rules for you. You only get to eat at certain times. You're not allowed to have pencils, or headphones, or clothes with ties in them because you might hurt yourself or someone else. You get yard time once a day for an hour under heavy supervision. You can't leave. Not because you're too sick to most of the time but because they won't let you. And in order to get out you need to be completely calm about it. Just okay and happy there which is impossible so you have to be good enough at lying to fake it."

Kaneda has a look of disbelief on his face, but Tetsuo ignores it.

"The doctors also give you all these pills. Just crazy pills, and I'm not talking about how they're for your crazy, I'm talking about how fucked up these pills are. They put me on SSRIs, Benzos, the works. They never told me what I was taking. They just gave it to me in these little cups and if I didn't take them they'd restrain me. I've never been so addicted to anything as I was to Benzos," he pauses, thinking. 

"Before the ward I did drugs but it was mostly just for fun. In the ward they gave me shit I wouldn't need in a million years. Seizure pills and tranquilizers high enough doses for horses. I'd ask the nurses about side effects and every time they'd tell me there were none. 'There's nothing to worry about,' you know, 'just take your damn fucking pills you shit kid.' It was hell. Only good thing was the free cigarettes. 

"I was shackled up to the medical system for about half a year before I went back to doing street drugs. It was this one day I got so sick, and I remembered I'd started feeling sick after the ward, and I looked up all these pills they had me on. I was taking like ten different pills a day. It was insane. It was like you wouldn't believe."

 

"These side effects were things like 'may cause death, blindness, involuntary muscle spasms, lack of appetite, increased appetite, incontinence, urinary retention, stroke, anemia, nausea, muscle pains, migraines, memory loss'. You would not believe this shit. So I look up how to get off them, and it turns out there are people who have been trying for years. Literal years. Little kids get put on these fucked up pills by doctors, and they die before they can get off them. They're so addictive they might as well be heroine, and I was spending about $200 a month per bottle if insurance wasn't covering it which it hardly was. So now I just do street pills. And I'm having a much better time, and fuck doctors. Dealers don't lie half as much."

"Wow," Kaneda says.

"Yeah," Tetsuo agrees. There's a pause. People on TV are doing something stupid but neither of them pay any attention to it. "Can I have some cookies?" Tetsuo asks then.

"Oh!" Kaneda says. "Yeah sure."

They eat the cookies in silence, Tetsuo looking at the crumbs that fell in his lap, Kaneda looking at the pamphlets on the floor. 

"So you don't want to think about antidepressants or?" Kaneda asks, trailing off.

"It's just a medically certified addiction. I don't see the difference. That shit's probably gonna have three hundred side effects that make me want to die more. I just wanna do my drugs, and be happy," Tetsuo explains. 

Kaneda nods. "So there's no way for you to be happy off the drugs?" 

Tetsuo shakes his head. "If there was don't you think I'd do it?"

The silence that falls is strained, and tense, and Kaneda looks at everything but him nervously.

"We'll figure something out," he promises.

"Honestly, just kill me," Tetsuo tells him.

"I'll figure out something, okay?" Kaneda insists.

"Whatever."

"I promise."

Tetsuo meets his friend's eyes and finds them burning with that hot headed determination he's always had, but he can't put faith in it this time. "Whatever you say," he says, knowing nothing will work and Kaneda will just get fed up the same way Kaori had.

"You're my best friend," Kaneda says.

Tetsuo doesn't even believe that.


	4. Chapter 4

That night, Kaneda goes out. He leaves Tetsuo with Four extra pills. He does a tally of his five pills to last the night, and hopes he can sleep through most of it until Kaneda gets back. 

He considers front loading them and hoping that'll be enough to knock him out. Times have been tough, and pills have been scarce, so his tolerance might be low enough. He decides not to chance it, and spends time watching old horror movies instead.

He takes the first pill early because he's starting to come down from the last two, and then eyes the rest of them where he's put them on the coffee table for at least an hour before giving in and taking the second one because Kaneda's movie collection is shitty, and he's getting bored.

He feels a little better after that, a little more solid. At some point, he realizes he needs to eat, and pulls some left overs out of the fridge because the voices in his head are insistent. They're always insistent about living. He wonders why they care. What compels them? 

The couch is starting to smell like him. When he'd first gotten here last night it smelled like Kaneda but now it's something mixed. He sits against the arm, glaring at the tv and eats the noodles cold. 

The clock tells him it's 11:46. It feels like it's been hours already. It feels like weeks. He takes another pill to keep his mind off it.

This movie seems to have no real plot. It's just some odd collection of pictures, and Tetsuo can't understand why that is because usually producers need to follow scripts. The director must have been on some good shit. He'll have to be higher to understand it. 

He takes another pill.

That's better. It's almost downright good, and Tetsuo's starting to feel the flow of the pictures. All these people are half metal monsters and they're in love the way they're ready to unmake the world. He likes the message, but why Kaneda would own this film he can't really grasp. It must be the blood. Or maybe it's the scene where the business man's girlfriend has the giant sentient strap on. He doesn't remember it that well now that the credits are rolling.

The clock tells him it's 1:00. 

Kaneda's still not back. He stepped out into the ether at about 10:12, and now it's been three hours at least. Where he is is a mystery.

There's one pill left, but Tetsuo's feeling nervous. He stares at it, trying to think what he should do. He wants to take it, but if he takes it it'll be gone. But maybe it'll soothe him enough to keep waiting. Maybe he'll be okay if he takes it. Kaneda can't be out much longer.

The clock tells him it's 1:02.

Time is frozen. He's going to rot here before Kaneda gets back.

He makes himself a drink, and sits there, sucking it down as fast as he can, eyes on the pill the whole time.

It's the last one. He can't take it because there won't be any more, but the more he thinks about that the more he needs to take it. His nerves are on fire. He's going to die here in this apartment, and no one will find him because it's not really apart of any world. It's just Kaneda's place. Who could get here except Kaneda?

It's 1:03.

Kaneda's never coming back. Kaneda's gone. He's never coming back. There's probably been an accident and he died and his bike is all fucked. Tetsuo worries because he loves that bike.

He's gotta find his pills. Kaneda hid the pills somewhere in his room. Kaneda's not coming back. Tetsuo needs to find his pills.

He leaves the last pill on the table. When Kaneda had given him the pills he went into his room first. Tetsuo tries to remember what it sounded like through the door. Had he made any noise that would be a hint? Where would Kaneda hide something precious?

Kaneda had always been great at hiding things. The orphanage workers had never found his contraband, and because of him they'd hardly ever found Tetsuo's. Tetsuo had used to love that about him. Now he hates it. Now it's a nuisance. 

He stands in the doorway to Kaneda's bedroom, and scans it in the dark.

The bed is a mattress with blankets pushed up against the far wall. There's a window big enough to climb through comfortably leading out to the walkway in front of the apartment, and a window so small it'd be hard for anyone Kaneda's size to get through it opposite that. Underneath one is a small table and under the other is a dresser, both covered in nicknacks Tetsuo can't quite see in the dark. The floor isn't any less cluttered, covered in dirty clothes left there haphazardly. 

Kaneda could have hidden his pills anywhere. There are even frames on the walls.

Tetsuo starts with the floor first, feeling around on his hands and knees. They have to be somewhere. He turns clothes over, and rummages through old towels. There are receipts and chip bags, but nothing promising. Nothing like a pill bottle. Maybe Kaneda put them in a different container to throw him off the trail. Maybe they're in a bag or a tin. They have to be here somewhere.

There's nothing on the floor. Only trash. Only useless trash. He pulls at his hair trying to think, trying to get an idea. If he were Kaneda where would he hide the pills? Under his mattress? Tetsuo flips it with a thud, and blankets are sent flying. nothing underneath it. Nothing. Nothing.

He turns it back over and rummages through the blankets, shaking them, feeling through them. The pills have got to be here somewhere. If they aren't he doesn't know what he's going to do. There are knives in the kitchen. He can fix everything by dying, but he just wants his pills. Why is Kaneda such a piece of shit. He needs his pills. They're medicine. Medicine.

Just like the psych meds but more important, more sacred. He chose these ones. He needs them. 

He fumbles with the things on the table. Dirty dishes, cups that smell like week old booze. Nothing Nothing. A ziplock looks promising but it's only headache medication. Tetsuo screams and throws it back down, knocking over a glass. Some sort of liquid spills, but he could honestly care less.

He rips the drawers out of the dresser, and dumps them on the floor, rifling through their contents. The pills need to be here. They have to be.

They're not.

The top of the dresser then! No.

Tetsuo's so frustrated he grinds a shout out between his teeth. His fists come down on either side of his temples but he didn't tell them to do that. Everything hurts. Maybe the pills are behind the frames on the walls. He tears them down, looking on their backs, and in the plaster for maybe a safe or some hidden trap between the studs. Anything. They have to be here. They have to be.

They're not.

Kaneda's a bastard. He's tricky. He must have managed to get them somewhere else and just been going into the bedroom to trick him.

Tetsuo rushes out, and pulls the cushions off each couch. Nothing. He wrenches them away from the walls. No. Behind the tv. Nothing. Maybe under the coffee table. Not even trash.

He screams again. There's still the bathroom. The medicine cabinet. Of course it's so obvious. Tetsuo would never look there. But he will. He's smarter than Kaneda thinks. Kaneda's stupid. He thinks he knows all the tricks.

The bottle isn't in there when he opens it. But that's okay because Kaneda is tricky and Tetsuo knows the tricks. He's hidden them in a different bottle. Tetsuo pulls out the cold pills and opens them. Nothing. They're dropped on the flood. The pain pills also have nothing. He dumps them in the sink. There aren't many bottles left. He's starting to get nervous again.

They're not in the toilet tank either, or under the seat. Not behind it. Not hidden in the shower head, or the drain.

Maybe they're not here after all. Maybe Kaneda took them with him. Maybe he flushed them down the toilet and he was lying about giving Tetsuo pills at all. This is the worst. He's the worst person. Liar. Manipulator. He can't be trusted.

Tetsuo should kill him.

No. No. He still hasn't checked the kitchen. Maybe there's. Maybe there's still a possibility. Kaneda's tricky. He's so tricky.

The cupboards are clear when he empties them out. A few ceramic mugs shatter on the floor but he doesn't really notice until there's a sliver of one embedded in his foot. He checks the sink drain and the cabinet underneath it. Where could they be?

Kaneda really must have flushed them. How could he have done something like that? That was at least a hundred dollars worth of pills left in that bottle. How could he do something like that?

No maybe he'd taken them with him. That would mean they were as good as gone though. Tetsuo doesn't have time for this. He rips through the refrigerator, not even bothering to doctor his own foot first. Once he pulls the ceramic out it'll just bleed twice as fast anyway. 

He's stuck here. In this place. He isn't even sure he can leave, and Kaneda isn't coming back, and no one can hear him all away from everything like he is. He may as well no longer exist. 

Bags of frozen food and old tupperwares find homes on the floor, but there's nothing. He can't believe this. How could something like this be happening? 

It's over. The pills aren't here and it's over. He might as well give up. 

He finds his way back to the couch, and sits down heavily on the bare frame, staring at the last pill, the only thing undisturbed by his frantic search. This is it. This pill might as well be the only thing left in existence. It might as well be the whole universe.

He picks it up, and cradles it in his hands. He should have known Kaneda would abandon him. He should have known this would be it. He'd just be left here to rot and die. It's the only place left he can go probably. He doesn't know what to do. 

There's only one pill.

The clock tells him it's 3:40. 

He lies down, and pulls one of the couch cushions over his face so that the endless nothing of Kaneda's apartment can't see him cry.


	5. Chapter 5

He doesn't hear the door open. Maybe because he fell asleep, or maybe because he's stopped hoping that it will. He's simply not aware of things for some indeterminable eternity and then Kaneda is yanking his ankle hard enough to pull him out from under the couch cushion he's been hiding himself with.

"What the fuck, Tetsuo?!" he bellows. 

Tetsuo shields his eyes from the light that streams into his face. Kaneda is standing over him. Looming more like, a voice in his head says. There's still a hold on his ankle, hard and relentless. He kicks his leg to test it But Kaneda just yanks him again.

"What the fuck?!" he bellows again.

"What? What do you want?" Tetsuo demands, still trying to kick him off. His foot hurts like hell from how Kaneda's holding onto him. It's almost unbelievable. 

Kaneda makes a gesture with his free hand toward the apartment, and Tetsuo follows it with mild horror.

That's right.

He'd panicked.

He remembers last night in a strip of disjointed feelings, nothing concrete except for frantic need. The apartment is destroyed. There's a hole in the living room wall and posters are hanging ripped off the thumb tacks they'd been put up with. The couches are askew, the cushions are everywhere they shouldn't be, and the door to Kaneda's bedroom is ajar showing hints of further frenzy inside. He's really fucked up this time.

"You fucking trashed everything! There's pills all over the bathroom floor! My bedroom's been ransacked! Everything in my refrigerator is left out! You fucking wrecked my apartment! What did I say about this shit Tetsuo! I fucking told you not to look for the pills!" Kaneda screams. "I should never have trusted you!"

"Trusted me? This was your stupid idea, shit dick!" Tetsuo shouts back.

Kaneda goes slack jawed for a second, and Tetsuo presses the advantage. "You wanted me to stay here! You wanted to help me! What the fuck Kaneda? You think one person can fix everything that all the people I've ever known have done to me?! Are you fucking insane? You knew I would do this! You wanted to keep me in your house to feel good about yourself like some project person! This is your fucking fault!"

"My fault?!" Kaneda starts in, all incredulity, letting Tetsuo go to hold his hands to his chest, and then flinging them back out. "Look at you! You did this to yourself! You keep blaming everything on everyone else! Why?! Why can't you handle any of the responsibility for your shitty life?! What's wrong with you?!"

Tetsuo kicks him in the thigh, and yelps when it sends a jolt of pain up his calf. It shouldn't hurt like that should it? He swears, pulling his foot up towards his hands, and feeling gently along the bottom of it. 

There's a jagged piece of what feels like ceramic jammed into his heal.

"Oh shit, Tetsuo!" Kaneda hisses. "Oh wow you're bleeding."

"No shit!" Tetsuo snaps through gritted teeth. "When I pull it out it's gonna get worse," he says softly.

"What?" Kaneda asks. 

Tetsuo sighs. "Like you've never been stabbed."

The look Kaneda gives him is half incredulous, half worried. 

"Do you wanna get a towel or something?" Tetsuo asks.

Kaneda huffs at him. He looks around at the place before he grabs Tetsuo's wrist, and slings his arm around his neck, hoisting him up.

"Shit, you're light," he mutters.

"Fuck off," Tetsuo hisses.

Kaneda's got different ideas though, as the other boy all but carries him to the bathroom, hoisting him over couch cushions, and dragging him into the bathtub. Tetsuo can't even remember being manhandled by nurses like that, but it's over so quickly he hardly has anything to do but stare at his friend baffled.

"You can take it out here," Kaneda says nonchalantly.

"Don't ever do that again," Tetsuo warns.

Kaneda rolls his eyes, but Tetsuo doesn't have the energy to push it. 

He looks the other boy dead in the face, and yanks the shard of what must have been a mug out of his foot. The blood is fast flowing, and the cut is undoubtedly deep. It's not the first one like this Tetsuo's had. What's unfortunate is it's jagged which means it'll heal badly. 

"I need something to stop it," he says. "Like a bandage."

Kaneda looks a little guilty. "I don't really have any-"

"You're a biker without a first aid kit?" Tetsuo asks.

"Usually Kei fixes me up," Kaneda says defensively.

Tetsuo snarls at him, holding the flow back with his fingers by pressing down on the cut hard and ignoring the pain. "Get me an old t-shirt you don't like and a bottle of your highest prof booze," he orders.

"What-"

"Do you want me to go anemic?" he demands.

Kaneda looks like he wants to argue, but he stomps out of the bathroom anyway. Tetsuo focuses on taking deep breaths, and not freaking out this time. He feels dangerously close to sober, and hardly any of this seems real, but it's one of those times he has to just assume it is, and roll with it. Life is full of those.

Kaneda comes back with a t-shirt, and a bottle of something that smells like an alcoholic's sweat. Tetsuo coughs as he pours it over his foot. Kaneda takes a moment to groan at the loss of liquor.

"This is what you get for not having any disinfectant," Tetsuo scolds, holding a hand out for the t shirt. He presses it against the cut firmly.

"Why did you rip up my apartment?" Kaneda asks suddenly.

"What?"

"I asked why you did this," he reiterates impatiently.

Tetsuo shrugs. "I panicked, I guess. I hardly remember."

"You hardly remember?"

"You went out and I think I ran out of pills, and I panicked. I thought maybe you had crashed or something. Maybe you were dead and you were never gonna come back," Tetsuo says under his breath.

"You were worried about me?" Kaneda asks.

Tetsuo shrugs again. "More your bike," he says. "If she got totaled I don't know what I'd do."

The other boy makes a sound that's somewhere between offended and amused. "Fuck you."

Tetsuo looks at him then. "I was scared."

"Come on don't be a baby," Kaneda chastises.

"No, Kaneda! Where the fuck were you?! You never said when you'd be back! You never told me where you were going! Have you seen how you drive?! You left me alone!"

Kaneda bristled, pulling a deep breath in through his nose before bellowing, "You keep blaming me but I didn't do this, Tetsuo!"

"You left! You locked me in here using those pills and you left, and I didn't know when you were coming back!" Tetsuo screams.

There's a silence. He can feel Kaneda staring at him, but he can't bring himself to look at the other boy.

"You need to clean this up," Kaneda hisses.

"I need to stop trusting you," Tetsuo mutters, keeping his eyes squarely on the places the t-shirt is turning red. 

It stops Kaneda on his way out the door. "What was that?" 

"Nothing," Tetsuo mutters.

"You're so ungrateful, Tetsuo! Look at Everything I'm doing for you! I'm letting you live in my house! I'm buying you your fucking pills! And you can't give me an ounce of trust?!" Kaneda is advancing on the bathtub steadily.

Tetsuo glares at him. "You never asked me if I wanted your help."

"You asked me to buy you pills!"

"And nothing else. I didn't ask for anything else. You forced me to take it with conditions. This was all your idea. I never wanted any of this," Tetsuo says defiantly.

"Oh so you're punishing me for being nice?!" Kaneda demands.

"I'm not punishing you, Kaneda. You're so self centred. This isn't about you. This is about my pills."

"Everything's about the damn pills," Kaneda mutters.

"Gee I can't imagine why," Tetsuo snaps.

Kaneda slams the bathroom door on the way out.

The bathtub is cold against the back of Tetsuo's head when he leans back against it to stare at the ceiling. 

Why are all his friends such pieces of shit?


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> got some comments on this and i found a few extra chapters sitting in my writing program so i'm uploading them because i was unsatisfied leaving this untouched and unfinished for a whole year 
> 
> it's a pretty personal piece to me even if it's not that super in character so it's something i wanna finish i'm just not sure at all where it's going so ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> thanks for your comments and @alwayswandering1854 i don't know where you are in life rn but i hope you and i both make it out of the rut we're in that this story is cathartic (even if making it out of the rut is just making it enough to be able to afford 'meds' lol)

Kaneda makes himself a bed on the other couch, and sleeps in the livingroom with him. 

Tetsuo feels half annoyed, and half grateful. It's almost like being kids again, watching Kaneda sleep. His best friend is still just as pretty as he remembers him being. It's clearest while he isn't making stupid faces, or being a giant asshat. 

Tetsuo glares at the ceiling. The tv casts flickering shadows across the room. Kaneda still snores softly, and tosses just like he always had. The pills make his head muggy, but they aren't calming him down like they usually do. It's stressing him out.

At some point, sleep creeps in though.

He wakes up with Kaneda crowded onto the couch he's sleeping on, their limbs all tangled up. Infomercials are painting the room bright primary colors. Kaneda's head is at a sharp angle, breaths rattling in a barely there snort with every inhale. It's dark outside still, which leaves them in that transient slumber party space cradled preciously somewhere between 1 and 4 o'clock.

Tetsuo feels his stomach turn over. He might be panicking, or reliving his childhood crush, but he can't tell which.

He shakes Kaneda awake roughly. The other boy gives a sharp snort as he wakes up, and blinks muzzily at his surroundings. 

"Whatzit?" he slurs curiously.

"You're in my space," Tetsuo hisses quietly.

"Don't be so titchy, Tetsuo," Kaneda gripes, moving to settle back into sleep.

Tetsuo thrashes. "What are you doing?" he demands. Kaneda's breath is splashing on his neck awkwardly, making his blood heat up. He tries to push the other boy back, but Kaneda just holds tighter.

A hard line of flesh slides up Tetsuo's thigh, freezing him in place.

"Do you have an erection?" he asks with abject horror.

"I kinda gotta pee. Don't make it weird," Kaneda gripes.

"How am I supposed to keep things casual when your boner is embedded in my thigh?!" Tetsuo demands.

"Take another pill, and go back to sleep," Kaneda suggests. 

Of course he's wrapped up in the boy so tightly, that suggestion is moot. Kaneda's arms are holding his trapped between their chests, and there's a heavy leg slung over his hips. 

Tetsuo shifts awkwardly, trying to reach behind the other boy to where there are four pills still sitting on the coffee table. 

"You're making it weird," Kaneda complains softly.

"How am I the one making this weird?" Tetsuo asks.

"Quit wiggling around like that it feels weird," Kaneda mutters.

"You're the one who put your dick on me!" Tetsuo shouts.

Kaneda winces, and lets go of him enough that he can reach the pills. Tetsuo wrenches the capsule open, and licks the beads off his palm. All he wants is to move to the other couch. He can see it empty across the room, alone, abandoned. But as he tries to get up, Kaneda catches his wrist and pulls him back down.

"Go to sleep," he mutters against Tetsuo's hair, wrapping him back up again.

It's hell to be held down like this, but Kaneda's warm, and it's nice to be close to someone in a positive way again. He decides it's alright, taking measured breaths to keep himself calm until he drifts back off.

Kaneda's gone when he wakes up again. He's uncomfortably aware of how hard he is, how his head is sore from where it's pressing up against the fabric of his jeans. He hisses, fumbling with his pants until he's freed himself.

He must have had a hell of a dream. This is ridiculous. He's so sensitive he doesn't even know if he can jack off.

"Holy shit!" Kaneda shouts, making Tetsuo stop dead in his tracks.

"This isn't what it looks like," he starts defensively.

Kaneda's standing in the bedroom doorway with his arms thrown up over his face. "Oh my couch, Tetsuo?!" he demands.

"I wasn't jacking off!" Tetsuo insists.

"Then why is your dick out?"

"My pants were tight!"

Kaneda laughs. "Oh my god! Holy shit! Put that thing away, and I don't know, warn me next time you need to work one out," he says.

"I wasn't jacking off!"

"Whatever you say," Kaneda shrugs. He shakes his head as he walks into the kitchen. "Do you want any breakfast?" he asks as Tetsuo hastily shoves himself back into his pants. 

"I'm good," Tetsuo says. He pops one of the pills, and locks himself in the bathroom. Kaneda had cleaned the medicine out of the sink and off the floor last night. The room looks about three times better than it had. There are still blood streaks in the tub but no one really cares about that. 

He takes care of his business as quickly as possible, doing his best not to think of Kaneda. The more he goes over it, the more he remembers being sandwiched between the other boy and couch-back. That had been so fucking inappropriate. When will Kaneda learn about personal space?

When he comes back out, the boy's smirking at him over a plate of eggs. "Feel better?" he asks.

"Oh shut the fuck up," Tetsuo scolds. He doesn't have the energy. He doesn't think he'll ever have the energy for Kaneda.

"I'm gonna go out tonight," Kaneda says then. "I've got a date."

"Is that where you were when I trashed everything?" Tetsuo asks.

The other boy gives him a sheepish grin. He's so selfish sometimes.

"When will you be back," Tetsuo asks, slipping over the back of the free couch, and settling on his knees.

Kaneda shrugs. "I shouldn't be out more than four hours even if I get lucky," he says. "But I asked Kai to come over and watch you while I'm gone anyway."

Tetsuo groans.

"It's for everyone's good," Kaneda says as if he knows what he's talking about.

Tetsuo hates him. "You never considered canceling?" he asks.

Kaneda gives him a scoff. "And end up how I found you this morning? Nah."

"I love how it never occurred to you that in order to be a knight in shining armor you might have to make some sacrifices," Tetsuo snarks.

Kaneda gives him a warning look as he gets up to put his plate in the kitchen. "Why should I be making the sacrifices when you're the one who needs to change your life style?" he asks when he comes back.

Tetsuo rolls his eyes. Maybe Kai will actually be a nice change of pace. They always got along rather decently back in school. They aren't great friends but they fight less than Tetsuo fights with Kaneda which is good.

It's been at least two years since Tetsuo's seen Kai at all. Of course Kaneda's been in touch with the rest of The Capsules the whole time, but it's still weird.

Back when they were all younger, and Tetsuo had just turned fifteen they were always spending time together. The four of them - Kaneda, Yamagata, Kaisuke, and himself - had been at the heart of The Capsules. Tetsuo the least so, but still. They'd done everything together, operating like a makeshift family unit, a band of odd brothers.

All of that was very much over though. Tetsuo had been the one who ruined it. He was no longer a family member. Last time he'd seen Yamagata, the older boy had been so pissed Tetsuo was actually scared he might get shot.

He still didn't remember the debt Yamagata demanded he settle. Maybe Kai would know more about it than he did. He and Yamagata had always been pretty close. 

Kaneda crosses the room, and goes out of his way to pick a spot next to Tetsuo.

"You wanna come out with me, and buy some snacks for the party?" he asks.

Tetsuo blinks at him. "What party?"

"The one you and Kai will have while I'm gone!" Kaneda says excitedly. Tetsuo rolls his eyes.

"We can get some chocolate," the other boy suggests. "Chips, soda. Anything you want."

"This is a bribe isn't it?" Tetsuo asks.

"I don't want you to shit in my bed or something, bro," Kaneda says with a winning smile.

Tetsuo wants to punch it. Instead he says, "If you want to bribe me just give me more pills."

"So you never want nice things ever just pills?" Kaneda asks.

"Pills are nice things," Tetsuo grumbles.

Kaneda pushes his shoulder, jostling him so he looses balance, and begins falling over. He catches himself on the couch arm, legs sprawling. "Lets go get some snacks, bro."

"Fine," he grumbles.

He hasn't changed his clothes in four days. He doesn't even have an extra set right now because he didn't think to bring one. Tetsuo tries to check himself over, but he can't tell if he stinks or not.

"Hey," he says softly, and Kaneda's standing in front of the mirror on the bathroom door, holding shirts up in front of himself.

"Yeah?" the other boy asks.

"Do I stink?"

"Let me check," Kaneda says, throwing his clothes down over the couch back, and burying his face in the chest of Tetsuo's hoodie. he takes a long, solid sniff. There's a beat of silence, in which Tetsuo finds himself suspended in horror and shock, and then Kaneda is rearing back, holding him at arm's length with a sour expression.

"You definitely stink," he says decisively as he makes a show of coughing into the crook of his arm. 

Tetsuo tries to punch him in the head but misses. Most people who come after Kaneda miss. It irks him. If anyone should be able to smash Kaneda's stupid head it oughta be him.

Maybe no one can, is a thought he's had on multiple occasions but that's honestly just the most infuriating thing. 

Kaneda laughs at him, all air and light. "You're too slow dummy!"

Tetsuo is almost teeth gnashing angry. He's decidedly too sober for this kind of behavior. Kaneda's just trying to get a rise out of him.

"You're old lady with a walker slow. We should start calling you grandma Tetsuo!"

Tetsuo throws a coaster at him, and revels at the silence when it bounces off Kaneda's stupid face. 

"Shit!" the other boy swears, holding his nose. The glare he gives is killer, but Tetsuo loves to press the upper hand on the few occasions he has it. 

He smirks his response, a leering, "I suppose grandma is fast after all."

Kaneda squints and then wheezes."I'd say you got me but you just called yourself a grandma," he retorts when he finally drops his hands from his face.

Tetsuo could kill him.

"Go take a shower grandma you stink!" Kaneda scolds, gesturing wildly toward the bathroom. 

Tetsuo rounds the couch slowly, and almost swerves on the other boy as he passes. He'd like to say it leaves a bit of fear in Kaneda's eyes, but his friend only laughs at him as the bathroom door shuts.

There's still blood in the tub, he observes. He'll have to deal with that when he deals with himself.


End file.
